Sociology of Education - Lecture Notes PDF

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Professor Eleni Natsiopoulou...

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Sociology of Education

02/02/2012

Book VIII  1. Which system of education does Aristotle support?  Staunch supporter of Public education needs to be the same for everyone – parents cant decide what their child should learn everyone needs to have equal footing The truth is, the translation translates it as “public education” but really he doesn’t say that. He really means “common education” Also, there is no “state” – it was city-states, Athens was not the “place” it was the “people” – the city was the people. Therefore, the aim of education became important, because the state is the people, there is no place, there is no constitution (everyone follows these rules and it works) – Athenians were different, their “constitution” are the ways they led their political community and social life. Law is not there as a controlling element, it just how their social lives are led Everyone has to have their own education, because the citizens ARE the State, not belong to the state. They need as a state to reproduce themselves, they need Athens to continue – that is why they need a common education. Education that needs to be the same for all, the same stuff, because all of these people ARE the city It doesn’t matter if they are rich, poor… They need to reproduce themselves because they need to reproduce Athens So it is not “Public education” as we know it Athens wasn’t the place, when they are invaded, they just left, it doesn’t matter Today, we function completely differently. Two important foundations: Common – the same for everyone. 

Universal- everyone has to have it 2.What constitutes proper education?  People cannot agree to what is a proper education, because people cant agree on what virtue is, therefore they cant decide what will make virtuous citizens

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Should we educate people to e smart, or to be good people? Practical, moral, pure knowledge – these sometimes contradict with one another, they almost never fit perfectly within one another. So what are the goals? There is no answer – his project is to give us

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the answer 3.How can youth be properly educated? Liberal education?  Education by habit, before education by reason (physically before 

mentally, and not at the same time) Youth are very different from adults, need to have things

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“sweetened” for them He makes a distinction between liberal and illiberal arts. The citizens need to be trained to know what is freedom and to live in freedom, through the education, certain subjects make people able

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to act virtuously. Illiberal – excess. Anything that makes the body incapable of

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acting virtuously, should not be taught. Anything that teaches people how to make money (illiberal) should not be taught. These lead you to not be able to think about your liberty. All the merchants could not vote – why? Because they had their money interests in mind, not the benefit of the city! They couldn’t

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vote for freedom because they were trained to be illiberal. Aristotle could not understand our education system today (banks,

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funded) Everything that is practical and destroys the body is ILLIBERAL

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So, does writing have utility? So is that illiberal? Can’t be – he says that writing and reading are different because they are a FOUNDATION to a liberal education. It is just a tool, and that kind

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of knowledge must be learned in order to reach the ideal intellectual goals (philosophy). Reading and writing are perfect examples of how balance need to

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be reached - too little r&w, cant reach goals. Too much, lead away from the goal. For Aristotle, everyone offers something. As a citizen, you canot act for the benefit of the state if you are educated to act for the benefit of the self.

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If they were to say in the secondary schools – must forget reading, writing, philosophy, lets learn how to bake bread and do practical things. Aristotle would wholly disagree with this, the most

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important thing is to teach students how to think. People do things because of outside pressure, its important to do

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things because of personal want. For gymnastics, he makes a differentiation. Need to train the body in habit so that it knows what to do, because then you cant learn anything (cant learn if don’t know how to sit). This relates to different classes having the willingness to learn, if they don’t have

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the habit, then they will not be able or have the willingness to learn 4.What is the role of leisure?  We teach reading and writing because there are specific needs and it leads them to a high intellectual level. We do gymnastic because it makes people courage, you trust your body more. But what is the

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role of music? There is no utility involved. “Free people can’t look for utility everywhere” – you are a slave, a slave to expecting to receive something back. Leisure is related to pleasure – going to choose work over pleasure,

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only if one learned how to derive pleasure form work. When people are immersed in pleasure, their “real side” comes out,

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you see that there is no education in character. The person who is really free and noble, is noble through and

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through, in every situation, according to Aristotle. In order to educate the whole individual, you have to teach pleasure. You have to teach people to derive pleasure from noble things. If you derive pleasure form getting drunk, he would be

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noble through and through if they would derive pleasure rather from listening to music at the symphony. People are judged on what they do with their leisure time, and from

where they derive please. Thus, this must be taught. 5.What is the role of music?  For leisure, to take away fro the constraints of mental work. There’s a way to do it properly. Its supposed to offer an outlet.

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But it also affects the actual character, music has the capacity to make you feel real things, you feel pain if you feel a specific tone,

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or you feel joy. You can feel what the music is expressing. Music is like a “virtual reality” – you do feel the actual feeling. You then can take these feelings and transfer them to the real situation, they teach you how to feel in the real situation (song

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about death -> someone who actually dies) Aristotle believes that performers are vulgar people. Why? They are not performing for themselves, they are playing for others. For others to feel those feelings, not for themselves to feel those feelings. Thus, for performers are vulgar, they are not tapping into

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the true purpose of music Performers back then were very dependent on the audience, if the

audience were not educated and vulgar, then the performers had to play vulgar music that would make them happy. This is slavery. This is not liberty! 6.Are lessons to play music necessary? How much and what kind of

performing is suitable?   ARISTOTLE, NICOMACHEAN ETHICS  Book II  1. How many kinds of virtue does Aristotle mention and how are these virtues produced?  1)intellect - teaching  2)character- habit (cant make a rock go up, cannot change nature.)  Maybe the later means that some races are “naturally” more stupid than others, but only the fact that you take a child that is more stupid than a fish and make the child become smarter, shows that

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you CAN change it. Therefore, the assumption that intelligence is given by nature is completely negated. When he talks about habit, he talks about practicing – practicing makes us the people that we are going to become. Creation fo the character is under our control. A good education teaches people how to practice the right things in order to have the right disposition.

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Moreover, whatever creates a virtue, the same thing destroys it. Ex. You have to practice to become a better builder, if you practice

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with a good builder, you will become a better builder, if you practice with bad builder, you will become a bad builder. It’s the QUALITY of the practice, not practice makes perfect, but perfect practice makes perfect. Mean – in order to be virtuous, you need to be in the middle. But coming to the mean must be a rational choice. There is not a true mean for all cases. The art of becoming virtuous is not an exact science, its relative and not the same for everyone. Relative

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because you are never sure what is exactly the mean ex. Courage (closer to bold than coward). Must know the relativity of the issues. Becoming noble and virtuous is the most difficult struggle – the goal is to create a city of virtuous citizens, that is why we are

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talking about this. So why is this so difficult? Excess is just more pleasurable – it is because of pleasure that we

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do bad actions and pain that we refrain from doing noble ones Had we learned how derive pleasure form noble things

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Moral virtue is a settled disposition o the mind determining the

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choice of emotion and actions Virtue (arete) then is a settled disposition of the mind determining the choice of actions and emotions, consisting essentially in the

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observance of the mean relative to us, this being determined by principle, that is, as the prudent man would determine it 2. How can we act right?

3. When can someone be considered just? (For how long does he need

to do just acts in order to become just?)  4. What is virtue?  5.What kinds off disposition is virtue?  6. How can we better achieve Moral Virtue?

Education in China/Rome/France   

02/02/2012

A. Educating Leaders in Ancient China, Rome, and Persia What     

philosophy underlies the ancient Chinese educational system? Heavy reliance on wisdom and morality Confucius “Golden Mean” Consistency - but able to build on the past Sincerity Superior Man - finds the Golden Mean. He is clearly the man who understands, but doesn’t know-it-all. He has one point of view, but is open to other points of view. Against dogmatism. He has particular characteristics that come to place because of his studying. Confucius says that people have to learn constantly, and explore new knowledge. They have to be open to everything -

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knowledge never finishes. Only then, do they acquire “sincerity” Eager to learn, not too opinionated, builds on the past. Only Superior Man can lead his family, his community and

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ultimately leave the State. Like Aristotle, agrees that if we take care of the man and his

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character, then we ultimately take care of the State because they are the ones who are going to be leading the State Of course, there were competing views to Confucius o Some saw education as a way of social control for man who is naturally bad (Confucius doesn’t think that, we just need to

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strive for excellence. To strive for sincerity and keep the Golden Man, to create the Superior Man through education) What should be the purpose of education?  To create rulers - stability of society 

More virtue (your rank/salary was based on Virtue, so more wisdom

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was rewarded) In order to allow a social system to survive, you need to have

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stability. For this, you need a system of education They needed to produce virtuous people. How? By creating the

“superior man” who has sincerity. How? Through Education. And they will lead the State (and they will be rewarded for doing so, education is the venue for creating upper classes) Describe the Chinese educational system.

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At first, there was no national system, but during the Empire they

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created a system for all boys. Its only focus was for the Civil Service Examinations

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Based on memorization - had to know all the history before you

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could come up with innovative ideas Does memorization line up with Confucius? Confucius did put a

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heavy value on wisdom of the past What is originality? You have to say something that somebody before didn’t say. You can only know if something is original if you

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have studied all of the history. The Chinese did have a focus on new ideas, but ONLY ONCE YOU KNOW WHAT PREVIOUS GENERATIONS HAVE SAID. Its not bad not to reinvent the wheel - what about recognizing about

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recognizing the merit of repeating work? In the end, it became way to formalistic with all the memorization but it was the same concept of knowing the past before going

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forward Teachers were a class of people were not very respected All who had the means were allowed to be educated (but naturally,

the poor did not have the money to go). Theoretically, it was open to all but practically it was not. What was the character of the Civil Service Examinations?  Info from these were collected very late - every year, the tests  

became more and more difficult. In the beginning, it was just to test the people who were in power Then, they played the role of a device to decide who will be in

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Public Service, and who needs to leave the Public Service These examinations were open to men of all ages, but certain people were by default excluded o Those who lived in excess in their profession - the “mean

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people” - beggars, prostitutes, slaves, entertainer - by default they are bad people and can never lead the state Weaknesses o testing the same thing over and over - very difficult, very narrow concepts o didn’t test character, only ability

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What shaped the Roman belief structure and educational philosophy?  To create people who were useful to the State  People who kept the ideals for the State alive  Changed over time: mom and dad teaching changing into public  

schooling system, and specialized school Big emphasis on orator skills and rhetoric The goals of the educational system were o Beginning - survivalist attitude, about preserving the State, who do we keep this going, perseverance of the patterns of roman life. Very practical philosophy: this was built into the culture and ultimately the educational system. This had to drive the decisions that were being made. Creating orators was in accordance with the roman republic at that point. The orators were speaking in front of the Senate and had to persuade decision making for War and Peace. The decisions to go to War or not was based on a good Orator!!! The romans did this well in the beginning o The Greeks had different goals, so their education had to be different. Educational programs get constantly transferred from one side of the globe to the other - nobody takes into account the context. Need to contextualize Education. The Romans didn’t need the same education. Romans went to Greece and though “what a great education system they have here” and tried to bring it back to Rome. o When they brought it, they started to think about secondary education and elementary education, and EVERYTHING changed because this was not the same context and the previous Roman education system. o This shift in Education systems caused the Romans to loose

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touch with its original goals and nature What were the character and goals of the Roman Education?  The elementary school served students 6-13 - when they started

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having the secondary schools, they added the grammar and rhetoric system The purpose: to create great orators

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These people had SO much power - that’s why they had to be

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educated correctly. Toward the end of the Republic, these years were very difficult

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years because the corruption in the system. Using the oratory skill for bad. Why, during the early Empire, did Education become an ideal and not before? o Needed international awareness o Needed a strong government for their new empire. When it came down to the everyday reality of ruling the empire - it was a huge “institution” (ex. Running a school for 300 students vs. running a school for 3000 students). They NEEDED a system, a good system. They needed certain factors to create uniformity throughout the entire empire (i.e tax collection in Greece, roman, asia minor). Those few who were in charge, needed more people to run this empire with o Of course there was a powerful class of people that could affect every decision of the empire based on how the senators were deciding - once you have the power, you hold onto the power. Orators first were trained to be the Senators. But once at that point, the nature of the education for the Orators changed. Why? Because now the Orators weren’t becoming

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the Senators, they were becoming those who influenced the senators, influence over those who will be making the decisions Describe the Roman educational system during the Republic.

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Give the character of the Roman educational system during the Early

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Empire Compare China and Rome.  You need the connections to be trained appropriately as an orator 

not a straight meritocracy. While China was more of a meritocracy. China kept a very similar system throughout its history - that creating the Superior man is beneficial to the State. In Rome, while the aims were lost and systems changed (aim at the beginning, the aim was to train warriors, and then changed with influence)

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In China, teachers were paid much, but they were HIGHLY

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RESPECTED. In Rome, teachers did not get that respect. In China, philosophy and creating virtuous people. In Rome, more

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about survival and defense (until the Greek influence came in with more philosophical things) Both: state stability and community welfare In china, no Public education in both systems. Alter on, both systems realized the importance of education and either they

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organized a Public system or helped the poorer classes have education by giving help to those who need it. They found the need to fund a publically organized system. Theoretically, both systems were open for all. The principles in both systems are similar - but the probabilities of who can and will

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finish school and get into the Public administration are very different (china- more probability, rome, less) The ideology of the Superior man was also different. o Chinese model was supposed to love knowledge and be open to all. Supposed to be revered by the Public as the most just and followed o Rome was a person who is a good Orator who persuades what

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is good for the State. Which are the main characteristics of the Persian educational system? Compare Persia to Rome and China.  The Persians had similar goals with the Romans (focus on war). But the Persians succeeded because they stuck to their ideologies of being a War State. During the period of the Empire, the romans left their ideologies. The empire was still expanding, but they stopped educating their people in a way that would encourage them to go to war and succeed in war. They lost this, shifted their focus, 

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and that is why they failed. In order to succeed: objective and focus is KEY

B.Educational thought ...